Well, according to the BBC he's "in contention" inasmuch as Dusty refused to rule him out.

It's obviously a left-field selection and tacitly acknowledges the shelves are bare, but these are exceptional circumstances. The incumbents have failed to repay the selectors (borderline foolhardy) faith, so why not go for the bloke with 108 centuries who's (again) averaging over 100?

FFS how are people not getting this.

He'll be a spineless wreck

It doesn't matter whether he averages 500 in FC cricket.

He will still be useless at Test level

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Yeah this is by far the most likely result, think they will give Bell one more test. There is no doubt that England want to be conistant and stick by there players but I think they have no option but to drop Ravi now.

Do not really understand the massive calls for Rob Key, everyone is reminding us of Ramps terrible test performance but in his 10 tests ( I know that is a lot less than Ramps got) he did very little to prove he has what it takes at the highest level. Given the options I would not consider it a terrible selection by any means but no better than other options which have been sugested.

If Anderson's a bit of a *****, I'd love to see what Langer has to say about Ramprakash.

Originally Posted by flibbertyjibber

Only a bunch of convicts having been beaten 3-0 and gone 9 tests without a win and won just 1 in 11 against England could go into the home series saying they will win. England will win in Australia again this winter as they are a better side which they have shown this summer. 3-0 doesn't lie girls.

The idea of selecting someone like Trott or Joyce at this point in the series is by far the most ludicrous idea I have heard. You don't have someone make their debut in a series deciding test match of an Ashes series if only because they have very little probability of doing any better than Bell or Bopara.

And yes, I would have gone for the bloke whos been averaging over 100 this year long before Bell got picked for Edgbaston.

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Assuming he's fit enough to play a test (which apparently he isn't) I would be more for picking him if he'd scored his runs in Division 1. This whole two divisions thing does complicate matters a little for selection... Key and Shah are also scoring their runs in Div 2, whereas Trott is scoring them in Div 1. The other likely-looking players scoring in Div 1 are Carberry, Read and Hildreth.

Yes, we know how poor Ramprakash was in Div 1 the past 2 years having averaged 101 and 61. And lets just remember that he went through a bad run of form during one of them. Trott can do whatever he wants, the point is that it would be sheer madness to pick a debutant in the 5th test of an Ashes series with everything on the line.

Just the amount of pressure that would be on someone like Trott would be immense and could be career threatening even. Ramprakash, if he were picked, would have nothing to lose really and his prior international experience would no doubt help him in this sort of situation anyhow.